Caring for the Dancer’s Body During the Holiday Break

To keep the body in good health is a duty... ~Buddha

     As the holidays grow closer, Nutcracker productions come to an end, dance schools close for a few weeks, students take a break from dance classes and everyone looks forward to some much deserved rest.  There is no doubt that our bodies benefit from rest and that our muscles need time to repair themselves after working strenuously, yet, I always hear dancers lament that as soon as Nutcracker season comes to an end, they become sick. 

     Why?

     Exercise over a prolonged period of time has been shown to have a positive effect on the body’s immune system.  Moderate exercise stimulates T-cells which are produced by the thymus gland.  These cells seek out invading infectious cells and kill them off. 

However, bouts of intense exercise encourage the body to produce stress hormones (cortisol and adrenaline) that temporarily suppress the immune system.  A full run of Nutcracker would certainly fall into this category.

     When most dance students are on vacation, they tend to abandon all physical activity.  Since moderate continuous exercise stimulates the immune system, that benefit is lost.

     During the holidays, we also tend to eat more foods that are higher in sugar content than we normally consume.  Sugar interferes with the human body’s ability to absorb vitamin C which plays a big role in helping us fight disease.

 

     So….yes, dancers’ bodies deserve a rest from class, but dancers can stay healthy if they continue to exercise on some level each day.  A simple walk each morning, a yoga class or a Pilates class will keep the immune system stimulated.   It’s also helpful to think about how much sugar you might be consuming……but don’t go overboard!  If those Christmas cookies look good and smell good then you should definitely have some!  The holiday season, after all, only comes once a year.

Happy 2012

 May it be a year filled with healthy, intelligent dancers!

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Dance With Special Populations

    "People dance because dance can change things.  Dance can give hope."
                                                     - Adam Sevani (from the movie Step Up 3-D)      

           Dance can change the shape of our muscles.  Dance can change the nervous system.  Can dance change lives?

            A group of parents of special needs children in the Milford, Connecticut area would say yes.  Each week in the fall their children attend a dance class run by Debra Marchese through the City of Milford’s Adaptive Arts Program.  These children are either on the autism spectrum, have Down Syndrome or have been diagnosed with other disabilities.  As the weeks progress, the classes evolve into rehearsals for a very special production of  The Nutcracker.

            During the class the students are mentored by students from New England Ballet.  Some dance along side the students, some mirror the movements for the students, some provide verbal cues and others provide actual hands-on tactile instruction, guiding a foot to the perfect tendu or arms to the perfect fifth position.

            Not all of the students rush to the barre immediately.  Some hide under tables until coaxed out, and others prefer to continue to talk about the costumes they have been allowed to try on in preparation for the performance.  However, everyone’s excitement is evident through giggles and shouts of, “Is today my special day?”

            As Debra announces that it’s time for Snow, the students rush to the right side of the space to prepare for their entrances.  They are accompanied by their mentors and other members of New England Ballet’s Company.  The New England dancers will act as their co-dancers and their guides, once again providing either verbal, visual or tactile cues which culminate in a beautiful dance.

            The story is shorter than that of the traditional Nutcracker, and the choreography is less complex, but the contagious excitement is there as is the pride of the performers.  This year’s Sugar Plum Fairy pays careful attention to the position of her hands and fingers as she delicately flicks her wrists to the strains of Tchaikovsky’s score while grinning from ear to ear.

            New England Ballet will present the Adaptive Nutcracker Suite for the second year on Friday, December 16, at the Parsons Government Center in Milford at 7 pm. The Milford students will be joined on stage by students from similar classes held in Southport and Trumbull.

            The performance will, undoubtedly, bring tears to the eyes of the audience members, parents, teachers and mentors who will be moved seeing what these children have accomplished, but it will also do more.

            For one brief evening, these special students who must work very hard at socializing, adapting and performing everyday functions that most of us take for granted, will feel the excitement of waiting in the wings, the joy of dancing with their peers and the pride of being applauded by an enthusiastic and appreciative audience.  It is during those moments that others will be able to witness how dance can change lives.

            If you know of other productions like this, please leave me some information in the comment section.  I would love to read about them!

Using Dance to Strengthen the Nervous System

“Every dance movement I make helps me orient myself in reality, my own emotions, and my own body."- Joseph Baldock

Our bodies are amazing.  We are adaptable beings.  Our muscles can change shape and our nervous system continually grows and adapts.   This ability to adapt, or neural plasticity, is part of what makes dance such a great activity for special populations.

As soon as we are born, our bodies begin to develop through eight basic neurological patterns, or pathways, that establish our nervous system.

1)    Breathing – as soon as we leave the
       womb

2)    Sensory Integration – established  
       through tactile communication, or 
       touch- the reason that human contact

            is so important during the first 3 months              of life.

3)    Core-distal movement – movements that begin to use the

           arms and legs reaching away from the torso

4)    Head to tail movement – Curling and curving of the back to

            help align the spine

5)    Division of upper & lower body movements – teaches

            stabilization of body parts

6)    Division of right & left side body movements – helps to

            develop weight shifting ability and horizontal eye

             tracking

7)    Cross-lateral movement patterns – since each side of the body

             is controlled by the opposite side of the brain, these 

             movements encourage the strengthening of

             pathways between the right and left brain hemispheres

8)    Vestibular movements – spinning or swinging movements

             that help develop balance, and muscle tone as well as

             coordination

When one of these motor patterns is skipped, partially developed, or altered, it shows up as a limitation or a problem with perception, movement and/or thought processes.  The good news is that the pathways are never destroyed and can always be re-established through movement.

Working on re-establishing these patterns can help people with all types of disabilities ranging from sensory processing disorders to autism spectrum disorders to Alzheimer’s disease.  Using movement as a tool is exactly the premise behind occupational therapy programs that work with people who are struggling with these disabilities.

It is exciting to realize that we, as dance educators, can use our art form as a tool to help these populations.  Dance educator, Anne Green Gilbert, has developed a warm-up program called Brain Dance, which she uses at her studio in Seattle, Washington.  She incorporates movements that follow the eight developmental patterns in an effort to either reorganize or reinforce the basic neurological patterns.

Since most dance classes include movements that include these patterns, this reinforcement is easy to incorporate into our classes.  What a simple way to use our knowledge to contribute to the development and re-establishment of the nervous system and create healthy dancers among all populations!

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Dance, Muscle Memory & Neural Pathways

"The hard must become habit. 

                 The habit must become easy.  

                         The easy must become beautiful." 

                                                                          - Doug Henning

You walk into the dance studio, the teacher says, “Let’s begin with two demi pliés and a grand plié in each position,” the accompanist begins and you execute the exercise.  You don’t think: plié means to bend, demi means halfway, grand means big, I slowly separate my thighs while holding my turnout, I bend my knees, I bend my ankles while I keep my chest lifted and my chin high, and I hold my abdominal muscles strong.  You simply do the pliés.

 If you have been dancing a long time, you don’t have to think about how to complete this exercise any more than you would think about how to pick up a pencil.  Your body simply completes the task.  Did you ever wonder how that is possible?

Thanks to the body’s nervous system, humans have something called muscle memory.  Although it implies that we are able to store memories in our different muscles, that is not what it means.  When we do an exercise for the first time, we create a new neural pathway.  This pathway is the route that a message travels on to go from the brain to the muscle and back to the brain again.  The second time an exercise is performed, it becomes easier because the messages are travelling across a familiar pathway.  Eventually, after the movement is practiced several times, it becomes almost automatic because the pathway is no longer new but is well travelled.  This ability allows for well-rehearsed dances to be executed without the dancer thinking of what step comes next or how it should be done and gives the dancer the freedom to concentrate on performing.

Muscle memory, however, is also the reason that bad habits are difficult to break.  When a dancer learns to do a plié with forced turnout and pronating feet, and then tries to correct it, he/she is forced to stop the body from using the old pathway and then create a new pathway.

Fortunately, the nervous system never stops growing and developing, and it is always possible to change bad habits and learn new things.  The ability to learn new things, create new neural pathways, and reorganize the nervous system through physical activity is exactly what makes dance valuable for many different populations, including the elderly and the differently abled…  


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Stretching Part 3 - Ballistic, Dynamic & Static Stretching: Which is Most Effective?

“Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape.”

–     Author Unknown

Truth Number 1 – Dancers must be flexible.

Truth Number 2 – In order to increase and maintain flexibility, dancers must stretch.

So….what is the most effective stretching method for a dancer to use?  Is it ballistic stretching, static stretching, dynamic stretching or some combination of different methods?

Ballistic stretching is characterized by bouncing movements.  The problem with ballistic stretching is that the movement never allows the muscle to pause in a lengthened position.  The constant bouncing moves the muscle between a contracted position and a lengthened position quickly and abruptly.  As the muscle lengthens quickly, the body activates the stretch-reflex.  This reflex is a safety mechanism that protects the body from injury.  The muscle sends a message that it is being forcefully lengthened.  As a result, the reflex mechanism begins to contract the muscle in an effort to prevent tearing.  This lack of lengthening, therefore, does not effectively stretch the muscle or increase flexibility.

Dynamic stretching is a type of stretching that keeps the body constantly moving.  A lot of dynamic stretching exercises are already built into a ballet barre.  These exercises gradually increase in range of motion until the muscle has reached its maximum length.  A gradual fondu exercise that begins with an extension to tendu and progresses to a full extension en l’air would be an example of a dynamic stretch.  Research studies conducted within the last decade show that dynamic stretches increase flexibility and in some cases even improve muscular strength and agility.

Static stretches are very familiar to dancers.  Static stretches are held for certain amounts of time like splits or barre stretches.  Research has shown that for static stretches to be effective at increasing flexibility, they must be held for 30-60 seconds.  These stretches are just as effective at increasing flexibility as dynamic stretches, but they also have an immediate negative effect on muscular strength, power and endurance.  This negative effect has been shown to be present for up to an hour after the stretch is performed.  Executing this type of stretch during class could have a negative effect on exercises like grand battement and jumps.

            Flexibility is a necessity for dancers and all of the research states that both dynamic and static stretching are effective at increasing and maintaining that flexibility.  However, research also indicates that in order for a dancer to have the necessary strength and power to execute center work, dynamic stretches should be done at the beginning of class and static stretches should be saved for after class and rehearsal and used as a cool-down.


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Stretching Part 2 - Working With Your Body Type

“You’ve got your body for life, you might as well learn to get along with it."                      – Sandy Kunskov

Taking care of our bodies requires that we understand that our bodies are different and, therefore, parts of our training regimens must also differ.

            Way back in 1954, William Sheldon wrote The Atlas of Men which documented differences in body types, or somatotypes.  He divided somatotypes into the categories of ectomorph, mesomorph and endomorph.

                                                

            The ectomorph has a long and lithe body with wide hips, the mesomorph has a solid square body with broad shoulders and the endomorph is recognized by its rounded body shape.

            The ectomorph’s muscles, tendons and ligaments tend to be loose.  The ectomorphs are the dancers who can drop down into a split every day without fail.  They may stretch at home but truly do not have to do much to maintain their naturally high levels of flexibility.

            Mesomorphs have an extremely dense muscular system.  Flexibility does not come naturally to them.  These are the dancers who must stretch daily and work extremely hard at achieving and maintaining the necessary flexibility for dancing.

            The endomorph’s muscular structure falls in between that of the loose ectomorph and the dense mesomorph.  These dancers have a natural potential to be flexible and can maintain that flexibility as long as they remember to stretch a few times per week.

            The potential to be flexible is available to everyone.  A body type can never be used as an excuse, but it is important for a dancer to have an understanding of his/her somatotype.  This small bit of knowledge can help a dancer improve his/her flexibility by simply acknowledging natural tendencies and working with them.

Stretching Part 1 - When Not To Do It!!

Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made. ~Ted Shawn

            When we consider everything that happens in every system of the body on a daily basis, we begin to realize that the human body is truly a miraculous creation.

            My students hear me repeat daily that we are only given one body, and it is our job to take care of it.

            If I had a dime for each time I have heard a dance teacher tell his/her students to go into the studio and start stretching to warm up, I would be rich.  Yet, every time I hear it, I cringe.

            Stretching is certainly an important part of a dancer’s training but should never be done at the beginning of a class or rehearsal.  Time in the studio should always begin with a cardiovascular warm up.  The warm-up should include the entire body and could consist of rapid walking or jogging, prances, small jumps or full body circles.  I have been known to spend the first 5-10 minutes of class having my students move through circuits that included jogging, jump roping and jumping jacks.

            This type of warm-up does exactly what it claims to do; it creates heat in the body.  These large movements increase the heart rate, which increases the blood flow to the muscles.  The blood, therefore, is able to quickly carry oxygen and “fuel”, in the form of glucose, to the muscles.  The heat combined with the increased oxygen and glucose delivery, increases the speed of muscular contractions and increases the speed of messages, or impulses, that are carried along nerve pathways between our brains and muscles.

            Additionally, warming up the different joints of the body releases something called synovial fluid, which acts as oil would in a car engine, lubricating all the bones that move against each other.

            Beginning a class or a rehearsal without a cardiovascular warm-up increases every dancer’s risk for injury.  All dancers are aware of how difficult it can be to heal from an injury and how quickly technique begins to deteriorate when a dancer must take time off to heal.  Taking care of our bodies takes a little bit of knowledge and some effort, but the payoff of having a body that continues to function optimally is well worth it.

            We are only given one body.  A musician has an instrument to use to create his/her art and a dancer has his/her body.  Musicians respect their instruments and take great care to protect and keep them working well.  Shouldn’t we do the same?

More Than Just The Body

"Socrates learned to dance when he was 70 because he felt that an essential part of himself had been neglected." - Michel de Montaigne

Dancers might be happy but is that the reason that parents rush to sign their children up for classes every September?  

Surely, parents realize that only a very few of these young ones who chaîné down marley-clad floors will become professionals, yet they are willing to drive them to and from classes and pay for them to learn this art.

The answer lies in the fact that we are complete beings - not only body - but also mind and spirit.  Dance serves to educate all three.

Dance is one on the few physical activities that is both an individual and a team sport.  Dancers learn to compete with themselves to accomplish their own personal bests.  They learn to work hard to train their individual bodies and to improve upon their technique.  At the same time, they learn to share space, they learn to be responsible to their classmates, to respect others and to move in unison with others.

Students learn very early that there will always be someone in class, as well as in life, who is better than they are and someone who is not performing quite as well.

         Dancers learn to create something of their own.  They learn how to make themselves seem larger than life.  They learn how to establish where they are and how to send their energy out into the universe.  They learn lessons in self-confidence and how to build their own self-esteem.

Dancers learn that there is a payoff for hard work.  They learn that there will be days of failure and disappointment as well as days of success and elation.  They learn to turn their failures and disappointments into successes.  They learn to share in the disappointment of others and to applaud other’s accomplishments.

Dancers know that the art form involves discipline.  They know that they should only enter a studio wearing the proper attire, with their hair up and jewelry removed.  They learn to respect their teachers and to applaud for everyone at the end of class.  They learn to talk less and observe more.

Dancers learn that a dance studio is a place unlike any other and they carry their training with them wherever they go, and illustrate what Martha Graham meant when she said, “Wherever a dancer stands is holy ground.”  

Why Do We Dance?

     Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who could hear not the music.”

                                                                                                                                           – Angela Monet

Yes, I am a dancer and I have danced for the past 39 years of my life.  I cannot imagine an existence without it and any time that I have tried to walk away, I have returned.  Speak to any other dancers and you will hear them tell you the same thing.  It’s simply something they must do.  It is definitely not something that the average dancer is able to put into words, and those who do not dance do not seem to understand it.  It serves as a compulsion or an addiction.  In the movie The Red Shoes Boris tries desperately to understand Victoria’s need to dance:

            Boris:              Why do you want to dance?

            Victoria:          Why do you want to live?

            Boris:              Well, I don’t know exactly but I must.

            Victoria:          That is my answer, too.

And so, we all dance just because we have to?

            In reality, we dance because our bodies tell us to continue once we have started.  When people dance, the brain releases neurotransmitters, extra proteins and endorphins.  The neurotransmitters, norepinephrine and serotonin, increase heart rate and blood flow and improve moods.  The extra proteins that are released promote new neuron growth in the nervous system and create better cell connections, and the endorphins promote feelings of euphoria.  Dance has the same effect on a person as would laughing, eating chocolate and getting a good night’s sleep.

            Truly, there is no mysterious reason as to why dancers cannot seem to stop dancing.  It is “in their blood.”  Those who do not dance, may find us to be insane, but we are also a lot happier.